In Hot Water...

You know those days when you drift through your daily routine like a machine, without putting much thought into what you're doing, but doing it anyway? Like those mornings when you don't think twice before walking straight into your bathroom to brush your teeth or to take a shower. Especially when you're the kind of person who likes taking a shower and look somewhat like this while you're at it:

What could possible go wrong, right? Oh, I'll tell you what could go wrong. Two days ago when I walked into my shower like a zombie, expecting to feel like that ^, I ended up like this:

I was "in hot water" by the lack of hot water. It was around 2 degrees (Celsius) outside and the water must have been around the same temperature when it hit my poor, unsuspecting skin, making me scream like The Banshee and head towards the other room where the Boiler is situated (while still screaming my lungs out). It took some time for things to make sense, and after going through the manuals and trying my best to not tear it all up, I figured out that the Boiler was malfunctioning due to a sudden fall in the pressure levels. As per the instructions, I turned it off, counted till 5, and turned it on again. Nothing changed. Then, I repeated the exercise Mississippi-wise when I remembered Ross from Friends. Since none of that worked, the next thing I had to do was turn a blue knob clockwise, and then anticlockwise to secure it. I remembered that this had happened once before and The Husband had done something of the sort at the time. But the stupid knob was SO FUCKING TIGHT (YES, I FIND THE NEED TO CAPSLOCKIFY HERE!) that I hurt my fingers trying to turn the damn thing clockwise (forget clockwise, the thing refused to move in any direction). Turn "gently", the manual said. "Gently", MY LEFT BLOODY FOOT! My last resort was to call The Husband at work because the sounds coming out of this thing made me suspect that it was going to blow up in my face. Also, my stressed-out brain told me that the temperature in the house had begun to drop drastically and that I would freeze to death by the time he got back from work. When he didn't seem to take me too seriously, I lost my shit and sent him pictures of the screwdriver I was going to use on this thing. He knew that I didn't know the first thing about screwdrivers. He also knew that I was dead serious about breaking this shit if I had to. That conversation went something like this:

"I'm turning the stupid knob with this screwdriver now. I can hear sounds. Something is breaking."

"Shit. Woman, wait. I'm coming."

That was easy.

In the 10 minutes that I spent waiting for him to get back home, I began to contemplate on whether I had escalated the issue unnecessarily by forcing a man who loves his job to leave early and come to my aid. Nope. Not a shred of guilt there. I tried to see if I was being unreasonable. Nope, still not guilty. But then, it dawned on me that I was throwing a fit about something that can be fixed in minutes when there are people out there who don't even have access to clean and hygienic water.

This made me realize that I was privileged and lucky to be able to even shower daily. To have access to hot water round the clock. To have access to clean drinking water in times when the same can be looked upon as a luxury in some parts of the world. So here's to luck or pure random chance that brought me to this position of privilege. I'm sending out gratitude for the same, and making a mental note to avoid wasting precious water, as much as I can. If you've read till the end, I urge you to do the same :)

I should probably add our Boiler situation to my list of complaints about 22 Nelson Street in this blog post.